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Although Windows Media Player 12 with the native support for MP4 playback is fully compatible with Windows 7/8.1/10, a number of Windows users would like to download a third-party MP4 video player featuring compact UI, solid performance and practical functions. Since the market is crowded with all sorts of video player software, it becomes a little hard mission to single out one program you really need. But, the roundup of top 5 MP4 players for Windows 10/8.1/7 here can do you a big favor.

Best 5 MP4 Player Software for Windows

On the basis of playback test, reviews/votes from geeks and feedback from users, we conclude the following five programs as the best MP4 players for Windows 10/8.1/7.

5KPlayer, the all-rounded media player software for Windows 10/8.1/7, boasts its formidable ability to play MP4 videos with crisp image and hi-fi audio. With a plain but elegant design, it offers extremely simple operation so that even a mere beginner can quickly learn how to play a MP4 video. Built-in all MP4 video and audio codecs, it totally supports MPEG-4, H.264 with HD quality and 4K/8K HEVC video formats. Moreover, it is 100% free and clean without adware, spyware, virus and any other malicious stuffs.

5KPlayer is not only a great MP4 player for Windows, but a professional video, audio and DVD player available to play MKV, M2TS, AVI, WMV, MOV, FLV, 3GP, MP3, AAC, FLAC etc, as well as DVDs on Windows PC with ease. In addition, it is featured to download online videos from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, Dailymotion etc. (300+ sites supported), and stream video/audio from iPhone/iPad to PC or PC to Apple TV thanks to packed AirPlay sender/receiver.

VLC is a highly-acclaimed free and open-source multimedia player designed to play a diverse of video, audio files as well as DVDs, CDs and VCDs. It can directly play MP4 videos encoded with MPEG-4 and H.264 on Windows 10/8.1/7 without third-party codec packs installed. It also brings a concise interface helping users to handle playback task without guess work. Like 5KPlayer, VLC is a standalone program bundled no spyware, ads or user tracking plug-ins. What’s more, this Windows MP4 player grants bonus functions to convert video files and rip DVD/Blu-ray/CD discs to MP4, WebM, TS, MP3, FLAC, iPhone, iPod, Android and YouTube.

RealPlayer is a popular cross-platform MP4 player compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Windows Mobile and Android. Aside from MP4 support, it also accepts numerous video/audio formats like AVI, MPEG, WMV, MOV, FLV, VOB, RM, MP3, AAC, M4A etc, and provides a list of plug-ins for additional formats support. Moreover, it becomes multifunctional media software which can play and manage MP4 or other video/audio contents on Windows/Mac computers, stream media over the internet, download web videos from YouTube, Vimeo and alike sites, convert videos and burn music to CD.

More than a top MP4 player for Windows, KMPlayer is versatile player software supporting a wide range of container formats covering MPEG-4/2/1, MKV, WMV, FLV, AVI, 3GP, QuickTime, VCD and DVD. Internal codecs of MP4 (MPEG-4/H.264) and other formats included in KMPlayer deliver a quick and efficient way of video playback. Apart from playing general videos, it supports 3D and 4K UHD movies/videos. Meanwhile, it allows users to capture video, audio, screenshots and manage subtitles with ease. Although the latest version of KMPlayer is compatible with Windows 7/8/10, it is suggested to use it on Windows 7 (32 bit) computer for grabbing the best performance.

BS.Player is another best MP4 player for Windows 10/8.1/7 which specializes in playing video and audio in MP4, AVI, MKV, WMV, VOB, MP3, AAC, AC3, WMA etc. It is an easy-to-use and efficient program with low CPU cost to guarantee a certain level of quality video playback even on a less capable computer. The newest version of BS.Player has been developed as all-sided multimedia software to manage video, audio, web-based TV and radio programs and live-streaming. What bothers users is that it may ask you to install BSPlayer ControlBar for subtitle download instead of removed attached adware in old versions.

What is H.265/HEVC?

Before downloading a free 4K/H.265/HEVC video player, you are guided to know the definition, use and superiority of H.265. Informally speaking, H.265 video is a kind of high quality video using HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) as the video compression standard. H.265 relates greatly to high quality of video, and an H.265/HEVC player is required to have high accuracy, high velocity and high grade. When mentioning an H.265 encoding or format, we may naturally associate with 4K content, but it also supports 8K UHD resolutions up to 8192×4320.

H.265 vs H.264

About a decade ago, h.264 (or MPEG-4 Part 10) is used in a broad variety of applications, as one of the video encoding standards for Blu-ray Discs, streaming videos from Vimeo, YouTube, and the iTunes Store, web software such as the Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight, etc.

After ten years, H.265 came out and defaulted to be the successor to H.264. HEVC endeavors to deliver videos and next-generation compressions with equivalent quality while saving up to 50 percent of bitrate. The data compression ratio is twice of that of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC at the same level of video quality.

Reviews of the Best Free H.265/HEVC Video Players for Mac/PC

H.265 will be the codec of the future and will possibly take the place of H.264 one day. In that case, many videos or media files won’t be playable with the regular player apps, and the professional HEVC player in the future may be charged.

But luckily, there are, not many, but a few free yet well-performed H.265 media player. Here we pickily single out two best free media players that support H.265/HEVC.

Review of 5KPlayer – No.1 Free HEVC/H.265 Player

★★★★★ Rating: 5; Type: Freeware; OS: Windows & Mac

5KPlayer, the leading product of DearMob, Inc., is a decent yet completely free multimedia player who is building up a reputation gradually, although it is comparatively young. Natively, it supports Ultra HD videos, so it can play H.265 encoded videos as perfectly as they are one. Without downloading a codec (encoder or decoder) or a plug-in, you can enjoy the latest video standard for quality and compression.

The unique core of 5KPlayer makes it recognize and read an H.265 video fast, and process and display it on the user computer as quickly as possible. More importantly, 5KPlayer is extremely user-friendly and lightweight. Even a beginner can play a 4K and 8K movie on Windows PS or Mac as easy as rolling off a log.

5KPlayer has many other outstanding features:

1. Plays HD/SD videos and audios, supports almost all video and music formats;
2. Builds up and manages your H.264, H.265 and all-rounded media library at free will;
3. Plays DVDs, even if it is region code protected;
4. Streams media from iPad, iPhone, PC, Mac to Apple TV, PC, Mac or AirPlay-enabled speakers;
5. Downloads any kinds of videos and music from 300+ online sites without a boundary.

VLC is a free and open-source media player developed by VideoLAN. It has been famous especially among Americans for many years. It can play many codecs without the need of codec packs. But for playing an HEVC format video, it requires to download a specific x265 as a free software library and application for encoding video streams into the H.265/MPEG-H HEVC compression format. But if you click the “Download x265” button on that page, a landing page of “400 Couldn’t parse URL” would appear and you will fail in downloading the H.265 encoder for VLC.

VideoLAN is a non-profit volunteering organization, so the support help and bug fixing are likely to not timely enough. Besides, the PC/Mac video player is more suitable for the users with a solid expertise base. It is at a risk of being overtaken by some latest players, in the sides of playing 4K/5K/8K videos and supporting trendy features.